A Sky Full of Stars
by JosephineSilver
Summary: Five one-shot/drabble pieces inspired by prompts from tumblr and other sites. Tsuna-centric. Open to prompts and requests from readers. Snapshots 01 - 20 posted. Cross posted on AO3. Technically always complete.
1. 01 - 05 Tumblr

So, hi. Chris has inspired me to do some things. Probably not things I should be doing, considering the many long running fics I have, but *shrugs* oh well. I thought I'd try my hand at some sort of drabble-y things to keep it short and simple to get my creative juices flowing so I can get back to those things that I actually should be doing. (I say drabble-y but some of these got hella long. Oops.) Enjoy.

Notes on each seperate story/thing are down the bottom, and will coincide with number.

All prompts are from Tumblr.

 **1| "Quick, catch that cat, it stole my wallet!"**

When Tsunayoshi Sawada (call him Tsuna) heard those words, he honestly felt like crying. His intuition sparked as they were spoken and then, well, bye-bye went his normal, peaceful, _quiet_ day.

He'd actually managed to plan his day out in a way that meant no encounters with his crazy friends (and yes, though he loved them like family, he was pretty sure they were all certifiably insane) - no overly enthusiastic Sasagawa's yelling "EXTREME," or convincing him to try thirty different flavours of cake, no children with their weird guns and bombs that Tsuna was sure half the time _weren't_ toys. Yamamato was busy with his dad this weekend, so no crazy antics from him (granted, Takeshi Yamamato was probably the sanest of all Tsuna's friends, including Tsuna himself. He was just highly suspectible to the groups antics, accepting of most behaviours, and so competitive that he'd go along with any crazy shenanigan as easy as Gokudera would blow up at him). And, speaking of Gokudera, Tsuna didn't know exactly what it was his self-proclaimed 'closest friend' was doing, but since nothing in his near vicinty had blown up quite yet, Tsuna was going with 'no news is good news' and calling it a win.

Of course, that was when the universe decided to crush the dreams of there favourite plaything, laughing all the while.

A small yellow and red blur bolted past Tsuna, meowing.

Tsuna blinked. _Uri?_ he thought. What on earth was Gokudera's demon cat doing here? Gokudera didn't even live on this side of town!

"Quick!" A redhead panted as he stumbled down the sidewalk, arm outstretched and pointing after Uri. "Catch that cat, it stole my wallet!"

Well, that sold it. Definitely Gokudera's cat. Tsuna had to wonder if this was the start of another of Gokudera's small time criminal enterprises - training his cat to pickpocket. After all, as much as they truly did _not_ get along, Uri and her sort-of master saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things - namely, illegal ones. If this _was_ the start of another crooked buisness, Tsuna would have to have a word with his long-time friend at a later date. When they were younger it had been one Hayato Gokudera's dream to become a great mafia hitman and many hours as a child had been dedicated to Tsuna playing the don with Gokudera as his faithful right-hand-man. As they had gotten older, Tsuna had grown out of it. Gokudera remained convinced that if he managed to gain control of Japan's criminal underground, he would eventually be able to relocate to Italy and start a powerful famiglia.

Tsuna sighed, slumped his shoulders, and reached out to grab the redhead's hoodie as he made to run past.

"Hey!" He protested.

"You'll never catch that demon," Tsuna informed him. "Luckily, I know it's owner. We'll just go round to their house and you can get it back there."

The redhead blinked and swivelled in Tsuna's grasp. To Tsuna's panicked horror, his eyes filled with tears. "Thank you so much!" The redhead said. "That wallet has everything in it - I thought Adelheid was going to _kill_ me for losing it."

A shiver ran down Tsuna's spine, and for some reason he thought, _Hibari_.

(On a rooftop somewhere, a skylark sneezed. Then frowned. That little animal and his group of herbivores that deigned to call Hibari a _friend_ had better not be talking about him again.

Hibird sighed internally. _Oh servant, you're such a tsundere._ )

The red-head smiled. "Anyway, I'm Enma."

For the second time, a shiver decided to amble its way down the nerves in Tsuna's back, but this one was different.

 _Oh no,_ Tsuna thought, knowing his growing horror was futile to stop what had already begun. _You're going to be another one of_ those _friends._

[X]

 **2| "So, why did I have to punch that guy?"**

Tsuna stared in horror at the carnage around him. _This was all Reborn's fault_ , a voice in his head told him, never mind that Reborn wasn't even present. Somehow, it was always Reborn's fault. Nothing like this had ever happened until the crazy baby hitman had come into Tsuna's life with his _mafia_ , and his _headshots_ , and his thrice damned _Dying Will_.

In front of him, amdist the groaning bodies of various downed 'opponents,' stood Yamamato and Gokudera, both looking grimly satisfied with themselves.

("Oh my god," Tsuna whispered. "Oh my god, _I do not know you guys_.")

"Good job, baseball freak," Gokudera admitted grudgingly. "You're getting pretty good with the sword."

(" _I swear to god, I can't take you guys anywhere_.")

Yamamato laughed. "Thanks," he grinned. "Someday I reckon I'll be good enough for the position of Tsuna's right hand, you think?"

("I am _never leaving home again_.")

Gokudera growled. Takeshi Yamamato knew, somehow, more than anyone, how to push all his buttons into maximum overdrive.

Before the silver-haired storm guardian could say another word, however (or light a stick of dynamite), the rain guardian turned to their shared sky. "So, Tsuna," he asked. "Tell me again why we had to beat these guys up?"

"Because they were taking up the pathway," Gokudera mumbled resentfully. "Standing too close to the Tenth."

Yamamato nodded as if this made perfect sense. Tsuna moaned in despair.

("You _didn't_ ," he whispered, head in hands. "You really, _really_ didn't.")

[X]

 **3| "You really need to stop leaving dead bodies in my kitchen."**

Tsuna sighed as he tripped over the still bloodied legs of the corpse that was, surprise surprise, laying spread-eagled on his kitchen floor. Goddammit, this was the third one this week, and it was only Tuesday. Specifically, seven am on a Tuesday.

Far too early for Reborn's corspe shenanigans.

Ever since the baby Necromancer had blown into his life with the dreaded words 'tutor' and 'Iemitsu,' placed close together, Tsuna had resigned himself to a life of literal graveyard shifts. He didn't like it, but what he liked less was the idea of not learning how to control his powers and just continuously Reanimating anything within a mile or so of him. (At first it had just been corpses, but recently he'd somehow graduated to plants, much to the bafflement of everyone 'in the know.' Reborn had expressed his annoyance with his stupid students reluctance to conform to what was known with a graciously granted day off school, and a metric fuck-ton of bullets.)

Tsuna had agreed to let Reborn tutor him in the so called 'Dark Arts,' as to perform reanimation cost the Necromancer something called 'Dying Will,' and if you burned it all up, well, you died.

Necromancy really wasn't a very effecient magical art, and Tsuna despaired over the fact that of course it was all he was capable of learning, due to his 'heritage.'

"Reborn!" He called out. "You really need to stop leaving dead bodies in the kitchen!"

A sudden impact to the head. "Don't tell me what to do, Dame Tsuna. If you want the corpse gone, Reanimate it and make it go yourself."

Tsuna sighed. Of course this was the whole point behind the corpse parade. Of course it was merely a lesson.

He placed his hands on the cold, stiff body. Reborn's tutelage of him had begun with a month in a morgue, and then another in a funeral home. Any squeamishness left after that had been beaten out of him, so he didn't even flinch at the fact that what he was holding was a corpse that had once been a person.

Warmth flooded through Tsuna - the warmth of 'the Flames of life,' an aspect of the Dying Will. Tsuna himself was Sky class, which was why he was so adept at the art he had been taught, even if he did not want to admit it himself. His Flames and Will seeped into the body beneath him and the air _hummed_ as Tsuna's flames synchronized with the cold, dead channels of the dead boy's flame circuits.

 _Storm?_ he mused, tilting his head as he delved deeper, eyes wide open and orange; unblinking, unseeing. _But that doesn't make sense...Reborn is a sun, so he can only Reanimate another sun..._

It turned out, the corpse held at least one circuit of all Flame classes except for mist and sky. Storm was definitely the boys primary though, and Tsuna reached out with his sky to fill those channels first, sparking his orange into red with a twist. By the time he had reached the still warm sun-circuits, he was exhausted, and kind of worried about how much Will he had expended on this one corpse.

He topped off the last circuit, and used his Sky harmonizing factor to spark all the channels into motion at once. Reborn wouldn't have been able to gain full movement off the corpse, only being able to fill up a small portion of it's circuits, but the silver-haired boy was now filled with Flames of all classes that originated from a pure Sky. Moving him - it - should've been easy.

But of course, when you're Tsuna, nothing is easy. A mental nudge sent along the link between living and dead Flame channels, a quick spark of Fiamma volts - and no reaction. The corpse did not stand or leave the kitchen. No, he pushed himself into a sitting position, held his hands out in front of his face, and blinked. Blinked eyes that were rapidly clearing from the clouded rot of death and were actually a deep, crystalline green.

"What the _hell_...?" The corpse muttered.

Tsuna blinked. Reborn blinked. _What the hell_ summed it up pretty nicely. Pre-emptively, Tsuna braced for impact. His tutor was _not_ happy.

"Tsuna," the cursed baby said flatly, and Tsuna winced at the lack of a 'Dame' prefix. "That was _not_ Reanimation."

"Ah, no," he agreed, somewhat frantically. "I don't believe it was."

"Reawakening," Reborn continued. His tone, if possible, flattened out even more. "It is a power to bring back the dead with sentience, and their own Will. A self-sustaining Un-lifeform. It has not been recorded within a living being since Primo's time."

Tsuna squeaked. He'd read the books Reborn had thrown at him when it became clear he knew literally nothing of Neromancy, Flames or the Dying Will. Daemon Spade, his ancestors guardian of Mist, had been a Reawakened. It was apparently an old wives tale among the Vongola that he was still around - after all, those who are Reawakened neither age nor grow sick, and there were no records of the first Vongola mist being killed.

Now that Reborn had finished delivering the context for his punishment, it seemed it was time for the violence to begin.

Tsuna liked to think that Leon gave him a look of sympathy before transforming into Reborn's favoured 'punishment gun,' as he thought of it.

The silver haired corpse boy seemed to have finally come to terms with the situation, and did not seem all that happy over Reborn's treatment of Tsuna. "Hey," he snapped at the armed and dangerous baby. "Don't harm the Tenth."

 _Tenth?_ Tsuna thought somewhat hysterically, dodging bullets. _Wasn't that supposed to be secret? How does he know about that!_

Reborn blinked.

Then he smiled, and Tsuna felt his soul leave him. "Congratulations, Dame student of mine," he said. "You've found yourself a Storm. Family, acquired."

The silver haired corpse boy blinked at Reborn. Then he blinked at Tsuna.

And then he sparkled. Tsuna blinked, as for a second he swore he could see ears and a wagging tail.

"Really?" Corpse boy enthused. "Me, the Vongola Tenth's Storm? I swear, I'll serve and protect you with my life!"

("Un-life," Reborn muttered.

Tsuna just groaned.

"I'm Hayato Gokudera!" Corpse boy - Gokudera - said. "My loyalty is yours, Tenth!")

"Tsuna," Tsuna said. "Call me Tsuna."

("Call him Dame-Tsuna."

"Tsuna-sama, then."

Tsuna groaned.)

[X]

Of course, because this is his life now, it doesn't end there. Yamamato jumps off the roof, kills himself, and Tsuna feels awful because it was all his fault.

("It _really_ wasn't, Tenth - ah, that is to say, Tsuna-sama."

"Shut up," Reborn muttered to Gokudera. "He does things when he's emotional. It's interesting."

Gokudera looked at the cursed baby like he was insane. It was quickly becoming a signature look for him.)

It's nothing more than instinct to lay his hands on the broken, bloody corpse, ignoring the whispers and yells and jeers and screams that come at him from all sides, including inside of himself, where his Flames are burning in rage as his Will sobs in guilt-ridden anguish.

 _I can fix this_ , Tsuna tells himself, wills - _Wills_ \- it to be true. Eyes glow orange and Sky sinks into still feebly sparking channels that had never been awakened in life but had somehow reacted to their wielders suicidal jump.

 _He changed his mind_ , those faint impressions of Flame sparks tell him. _He didn't want to die. He wanted someone to care, someone to save him._

And as Sky twists to Rain, orange into blue, Tsuna is crying.

Yamamato - Takeshi - blinks open confused eyes and wonders if this is the afterlife. Tsuna gathers him in a crushing hug and sobs into his chest, nevermind that they don't really know eachother and have spoken all of one time.

Takeshi knows, the same way Gokudera did, just who Tsuna is now, what Tsuna has done to - _for_ \- him. _He cares,_ the Rain thinks as his arms come up to hold Tsuna as well. _I'm not alone_ , and then he is crying too.

Reborn doesn't have to say a thing, though Tsuna can feel his smug grin raditaing towards him from a mile away.

Because - yes, Tsuna doesn't want the Vongola. Doesn't want to head a mafia family - _the_ mafia family, and _especially_ does not want to deal in the arcane. But he can't deny the pull of his blood and Flames any more than he can deny the calls of his Elements. A Sky is not made to be empty. So, yes, Tsuna knows what this is. This is _Harmony_ , and this boy he holds, this beautiful, broken, yet-still-strong swallow-spirit of a boy is his rain.

(Family, acquired.)

[X]

This is quickly becoming the norm for Tsuna, because _what even is his life anymore_.

(It's insane, of course, but Tsuna's not about to admit that out loud. The universe might hear him, and take it as a challenge.)

 _Escaped criminals_ , Reborn says. _Very dangerous_ , Reborn tells him. _Slaughtered families_ , Reborn delivers the finishing blow.

"We should probaly leave this to the professionals," Tsuna tells him.

 _Sure, sounds like fun,_ Reborn hears.

It's times like these Tsuna really hates his father.

(Honestly, he feels that he should probably be hating Reborn, but the crazy baby hitman is goddamn psychic, and hatred towards his tutor would be detrimental towards both Tsuna's health and continued existence.)

So, there's a meglomaniac possessing all his friends, for some reason Kyoya Hibari is there, beaten and...dying? Yes, definitely dying, Tsuna can feel his waning Will; there are prisoners to worry about, such as Lancia and some kid called Fuuta, and Reborn is, of course, _being fucking useless_ , as he usually is in these kinds of situations. His tutor definitely likes throwing him into the deepend with no security net.

(Tsuna knows that if things got really dire, Reborn _would_ step in - but until then, Tsuna is on his own, and he knows he is the only one really indispensible to the Vongola. So if his guardians die a second time, they can be replaced. Tsuna literally _can't_.

This doesn't make him feel any better.)

Somehow, by some miracle, Tsuna wins. Leon did... _something_ , and then in turn Reborn did something, and those somethings connected with Tsuna as the catalyst, and _he_ did something.

Tsuna had thought by that point he had known his Flames and Will pretty well. Two years of training and while nowhere close to mastery, at least adept.

(Boy, was he wrong)

For the first time, Tsuna understands what Reborn is going on about when he tells Tsuna to always do things with his 'Dying Will.' For the first time, his flames are not just some abstract, internal construct or ideal he wields in Necromancy. They are real, they are external, they are _burning_ a fierce, pure orange, and Tsuna knows with clarity, in that second, he is deadly. He is the definition of lethal and no-one, short of maybe Reborn, is capable of stopping him.

But he does not wish to cause harm. Like this, he is the definition, the embodiment, of the Sky Reborn tells him he is. And as the Sky encompasses all, it sees all.

Tsuna sees Mukuro, and Mukuro _hurts_ him.

(If he is a Sky, shouldn't he be able to _fix_ this?)

His Flames, so lethal and deadly, soften and their heat becomes a lulling warmth. He lunges for Mukuro, presses palms to face and _pushes_.

Mukuro _screams_. He screams Rage. He screams Pain. He screams Betrayal and Fear and old hurts never healed. Tsuna rips those wounds wide open, exposes them to the light of the sky they had never hoped to see again, whispers reassurances, says, _I am here._

Says, _I am not leaving_.

And now Mukuro is crying, and Tsuna is crying, and all his friends are crying because they are possessed and a part of the skymistharmony.

Hatred, Mukuro throws at him. Bloodlust too, and Killing Intent. _I harmed your town,_ the mist whispers as tendrils snake around his sky, two strong Wills clashing. _I hurt your people_.

Tsuna ignores him. _I will not force you,_ he whispers back, sky welcoming the mist, beckoning, come closer. _I will not hurt you like others have hurt you._

Trust, Tsuna gives willingly to Mukuro. And offers, for the future, Family.

Mukuro stills, eyes swollen red and wide, hair greasy and a mess, trembling. Hope, Tsuna senses, so tentative and scared and new.

But Tsuna feels pleased, because this is a breakthrough, because now Mukuro can maybe, possibly, heal and be safe.

(Of course, that is when the Vindice arrive.

And of course, they fuck everything up.)

This is how it goes:

The others are slowly coming back from their possession, shaking their still clouded heads as they return to themselves.

Reborn is watching from the shadows, fedora tilted down and expression dark.

Tsuna stands front and centre. He has long since left Hyper Dying Will Mode, but as always, with something to fight for and protect, his fangs and claws shine deadly and magnificent. Reborn isn't sure why his student is so dead set on Mukuro, but this is the first family member he has truly fought for. The others came to him, chose him. Mukuro is the first one he has actively _wanted_ to claim as his own.

Mukuro stands behind Tsuna. His eyes, fixed upon the Vindice, are terrifed (broken), but his body and face are smooth, relaxed.

Finally, Tsuna apparently stalls one second too long or oversteps one line too many, and the Vindice snap. Chains snap out, sharp ended, with intent to kill, aiming for Tsuna.

Mukuro lunges in front of the sky, the one who could've been - _would've been_ \- _his_ sky - and then -

\- _ripping tearing screaming breaking_ _ **agony**_ **.**

(Mukuro has, of course, felt worse. But as black encroaches his vision and the Vindice leave, their job done, and Tsuna is leaning over him, eyes panicked and tearful, _his_ eyes slipping closed, he feels as if this knowledge won't reassure the little sky.

No. It would probably just hurt him more.)

[x]

"Tsuna?" Yamamato sounds cautious. That's a new one.

Tsuna's eyes are crystalline orange. They stare sightlessly forwards and tears slip from them, this small example of emotion breaking the mask of emptiness on the Sky's face and creating dissonance in his state of non-humanity.

His hands are on Mukuro, and the air is heavy with his Will.

It is clear what he is doing.

But Mukuro is not returning.

Tsuna doesn't understand. Mist Flames are elusive, yes, that is true, but Mukuro's channels should not be shying away from him like that. After all, they're dead.

( _The Six Paths_ , whispers a voice inside Tsuna's mind, and he wishes to scream _ragepainfrustration_.)

Tsuna tried. He tried so hard. But even he could not fix something this broken.

His hands shift on Mukuro's still form, and Flames spark from inner to outer, his whole body devoured by the orange blaze. After there is nothing left but ashes, Tsuna lets go of his Will and breaks down crying. The elements move in to stand by and comfort their grieving sky.

(Later that night, when Tsuna is curled and silent in his bed, Nana Sawada sends a worried look upstaris.

"Is he okay?" she questions Reborn. I-Pin and Lambo and the little boy they brought home with them - Fuuta - pause and look inquisitively at the baby. I-Pin and Lambo because they are concerned about the one they have adopted as older brother, and Fuuta because he's not entirely sure how Reborn intends to either explain all the ways in which this woman's son is not okay, or lie to her.

"He will be," Reborn says, and it is a promise. "I'll make sure of it. I came here to tutor your son, and that means more than just improving his grades."

Nana smiles at Reborn, and not for the first time he thinks she knows more than she normally lets on. "Thank you, Reborn," she says, and for one panicked second Reborn could have sworn he heard tones or shades of _Renato_ when she spoke his name.)

[X]

Tsuna is tired. That is probably the best and most accurate way to put it.

Yes, tired.

His Flames ache, and his Will is worn down, and yet Ryohei Sasagawa...is still dead.

Was this just going to be the norm from now on? He used to be so confident and quietly sure of himself when in the midst of his Will like this, but now, since failing Mukuro, failing him so deeply in the worst way, insecurities plague him whenever he so much as attempts to activate his Flame.

(Kyoko is crying, and that isn't helping with the whole confidence thing. She had come to Tsuna in the middle of class, panicked and blood covered and crying about her brother. "I remember what you did to Takeshi," she sobbed out, and Tsuna's blood had run cold. Only someone with active Flames should remember those events after all the effort the Vongola put into covering it up, and as he reaches out, he can sense her sun. "Please, you have to help my brother."

And Tsuna, well, he's been in love with Kyoko since grade school, ironically because of her smile, which he thought shone like the sun, and he doesn't want to turn her down and hurt her. Even more then that, Ryohei Sasagawa, for all his flamboyance and 'extremeness,' seems like a good guy, and he doesn't deserve to die.

Tsuna nods, and he and Kyoko rush out of the room, leaving behind a spluttering teacher, confused Yamamato, worried Hana, and glowering Gokudera.

Hibari watches the two exit the school grounds at a sprint from the rooftop, but does not make a move to follow or stop them. He remembers what the fluffy herbivore did the day that Takeshi Yamamato died, and he was there at Kokuyo Land, was there for Mukuro.

The Sawada boy had the potential to grow into an incredible predator if his blunted claws and wounded spirit were mended and sharpened properly, and Kyoya is not about to interfere in what could very well be the first step in the little animal's recovery.)

But Ryohei just won't wake up. It isn't like Mukuro, whose very body was so ingrained against and fearful of being reborn into the world a seventh time, and just wouldn't accept his flames. No, this is different.

As hard as it is to believe, even with his flames mostly dormant, Ryohei Sasagawa apparently spends about ninety percent of his time in Dying Will mode.

His channels are like the ground after a lightning storm. Damaged, torn up, blocked. They aren't connecting right, about half of them are burnt out like old fuses, and the Flames Tsuna pours into him are quickly sucked out.

Tsuna grits his teeth in frustration. Unlike with Mukuro, he _knows_ what the problem is. But just like with Mukuro, he _can't fix it_ \- it just isn't within his skill set.

But Kyoko is sobbing, and if Tsuna is one thing he is stubborn, and he will not bow to the reaper in this case.

His Flames _twist_ once again, from sun back to sky, and he allows pure orange to blast through Ryohei's body. Kyoko may or may not have screamed.

But it doesn't matter. Ryohei's body, damaged by a truck in a hit and run incident, was already damged beyond repair. For the sake of Necromancy powered by Dying Will, all that matters is the state of the metaphysical Flame Waves, the channels, the circuits. Orange is sky. It is harmony and purification, and Tsuna forces those ideal against the almost damaging heat of Ryohei's sun, still burning brightly even in death.

 _Dying Will_ , Tsuna muses.

"Ryohei," he says, and is it just him, or is his voice layered with others. "Your sister is waiting for you. Wake up."

Orange once more twists into yellow, and Tsuna allows the nature of Necromancy to run it's course as Ryohei's body pulls itself back together.

(There are tears, mostly of happiness. Kyoko is a blubbering mess, and Ryohei - Sasagawa-senpai - _onii-san -_ won't stop talking about how 'extreme' he is.

Tsuna can't help but smile himself. He is exhausted, sitting on sore knees and soaked in blood on the side of the road, but he is happy. For the first time since Mukuro, he feels somewhat like himself again. After all, that's the power of the sun, right? It hovers over the family, keeping them cheerful, keeping them warm. Their light, even in the darkest of times.

Reclining in a cafe somewhere nearby in Namimori proper, Reborn sips at his espresso and smiles. Even from this far away, he knows a sun when he feels one, and this time he feels _two_.

Family, acquired.)

"Thank you, Tsuna-kun," Kyoko whispers, gratitude shining in her eyes as her brothers grip around her tightens. " _Thank_ you."

(This is all Tsuna has wanted since he turned twelve and awakened his latent Necromancer blood - to help people, like he has helped the Sasagawa siblings.)

[x]

Tsuna now spends the majority of his time around dead people, but that is okay. By now, he's pretty much used to it, and at least Reborn has stopped bringing corpses home like souvenirs, even if only for fear that Tsuna might Reawaken all of them instead of merely Reanimate.

(Tsuna considers that train of thought for a while. Is it possible that he has become incapable of raising up a normal zombie-class corpse?

And then he shudders, _because did he really just ask himself that_ and _oh god why is this his life_.)

(About four-hundred-years earlier, Giotto, Ieyasu, Vongola Primo, sneezed.

"Maa, maa, that means someone is talking about you, you know?" Asari said mildly.

G snarled. "Who dares to talk about the Boss? _I'll kill them!_ "

Giotto sighed, because _of course_ these are his friends, and _of course_ this is his life.

"If you do not quiet down, I will arrest you."

Giotto squeaks.)

Back to the present, and Tsuna shivers as foreboding hits him. _Hibari_ , whispers his intuition.

 _Why?_ He wails back.

But because he has been taught, above all, to listen to Reborn first and his intuition second, and the hitman is currently asleep in his hammock with his eyes open, and Tsuna is going nowhere near _that_ particular sleeping bear, he takes the initiative and listens to his intuition.

(Yeah. He's probably going to regret this.)

[x]

Turns out, his intuition is right - but so is he. _So much_ regret.

He arrives in the shadows of the opening of a Namimori back alley just in time to see Hibari felled by the slash of a blade wielded by - is that _Sephiroth?_

No, that'd be stupid, but whether intentionally or unitentionally, the white haired foreigner of a swordsman is definitely emulating the popular character, and the mental playback of the one-winged-angel theme Tsuna's hamster mind so helpfully provides like a boss battle BGM soundtrack tells Tsuna to in no way, no _how_ , mess with this guy.

(It probably says something about Tsuna that his idea of fixing the problem is to wait for the guy to finish Hibari off, leave, and then run in and bring the skylark back from the dead, but he prefers not to dwell on this fact. Clearly spending all his time around animated corpses, morgues, funeral homes, _Reborn_ , and just his mother in general has warped him beyond repair.)

The guy _finally_ leaves, and Tsuna rushes to Hibari's side.

Huh. The demon prefect acutally looks kind of...peaceful, like this. Without all the anger and bloodlust clouding his face, he's actually kind of handsome.

And yeah, Tsuna's hopping off that train of thought _right this second now_ and getting onto the connecting _nope_ train, because that is a corpse, an _actual_ corpse, not a Reawakened one, and thinking things like that about dead people as if they are merely sleeping is the direct and exact opposite of a-okay.

So to block out his own crazy thoughts and despairing rambling on his entirely skewed moral compass, he summons his Will and pushes it through Hibari.

(To his relief, the cloud type - _should've known_ \- is quite possibly the easiest Reawakening he's done since Yamamato.)

Hibari doesn't even comment on his state or what Tsuna has done to him, even though he must know, as all those Reawakened by Tsuna just _know_.

Instead, his eyes gleam, and yep, the bloodlust is back.

("Fight me, herbivore."

"No way, you're dead, Hibari-san. Your internal limiters have been removed, and you were scary enough _without_ them.")

Tsuna gulps.

 _So_ much regret.

[x]

Reborn and his whole, 'telling you really important things that you should probably know but waiting until the last minute,' really isn't helping with _anything_ , either.

Succession issues. Assasinations squads. Basically everything in Tsuna's life sucks right now, including his dead friends, who are all being really gung-ho about more than likely dying. Again.

Iemitsu, his deadbeat of a ridiculous Necromancer mafia dad (a sentence Tsuna never thought would actually make cohesive sense - and he was right, as it still doesn't, even after _years_ of knowing it) has tried to push him into claiming a mist - _any_ mist.

(Reborn has said nothing on the matter. Tsuna isn't sure if that is reassuring or not.)

"I refuse," Tsuna said for what had to be the hundredth time in that hour alone. "I don't need a mist."

Iemitsu sent a despairing gaze heavenward.

(Well. At least now Tsuna knows where he got his trademark 'what even,' look from.)

"You need a mist, Tsuna," he said. "Each advantage against the Varia counts."

"That's Tsunayoshi, to you," he corrected automatically. "And I won't be choosing any of my guardians because they are an _advantage_." Mukuro flashes in his minds eyes, the confidence and lethality of his sarcastic swagger and strength, the poison of his hatred towards the world, and the vulnerability of his inner self, the cold lock he held on his flames. "I don't need a mist," Tsuna repeated. "Nor do I want one."

Iemitsu didn't understand his son's obstinance.

(Tsuna didn't expect him too.)

[x]

They are doing okay until the battle for the mist ring. Tsuna holds the Vongola half ring of mist entrusted to his side in his pocket and he knows he will have to forfeit it though it leaves a bad taste in his mouth - something about the Varia is just _off_ , not least because he watched Squalo carve up Hibari, a civilian kid, no matter how much the skylark protested, like it was nothing.

They've lost more than they've won, and Gokudera's pride still hasn't recovered. Tsuna himself is still fuming over Lambo's inclusion. Maybe it was because all of his guardians so far had died before he found them, but he had never even considered the Bovino as an option (granted, mostly because he was a _child_ , what on _earth_ was that idiot Iemitsu _thinking?_ ). Throughout the entire fight for the Lightning ring, Tsuna had been terrified, his Will close to the surface, ready to bring Lambo back at a moments notice, and wasn't _that_ a horrible thought. It was a lot harder to muster up the same level of concern for his other guardians - oh, sure, he cared, he cared a lot, and seeing the vicous beatdown the Varia's, quite frankly, _insane_ storm had given his own had nearly sent him into cardiac arrest - but they were strong, they knew how to fight, and even if they had yet to fully actualise their Flames, their deaths and subsequent Reawakening's had released their internal limiters. They no longer felt pain the way living humans did. They were stronger and faster, even if they did sustain damage just as easily.

("Glass cannons," Reborn had nodded thoughtfully. "But there are ways around that. The pros far outweigh the cons in this scenario.")

Tsuna had intervened when he could sit still no longer, and it was clear that the Varia Lightning representative had no intention of letting Lambo live past his defeat. It had cost him the sky ring, but Lambo still had a beating heart and the ability to age past five, so Tsuna called that a win, no matter the disaproval Reborn had sent at him.

(Tsuna knew his tutor pretty well by this point, and knew Reborn was actually proud of him, for protecting his family.)

The battles for mist and cloud were all that remained, and some part of Tsuna _knew_ , just _knew_ , that Xanxus would not let him go without a fight.

That was just fine with Tsuna. After seeing what Xanxus and his people had done to Tsuna's family alone, he could not, in good conscience, allow him complete power over a mafia family that was also a clan of Necromancers, and various other practitioners of the arcane.

(He would reclaim the sky ring.)

[x]

When the time for the mist battle arrived, Tsuna prepared, reluctantly, to hand the ring over when his intuition struck through him like it only had once before.

 _Mukuro_ , some small, wounded part of him whispered deep inside, filled with hope, wonder - and surety.

Tsuna had never doubted his intution before this moment, Reborn had beaten that into him at the same time he had beaten the squeamishness out, but... _how?_

 _Legit question, here,_ Tsuna poked his subconsciousness' way. _Seriously, how?_

His mind didn't answer him in words, but the vague impression of a shrug and _idfk_ reached him.

And that was when Tsuna met Chrome. Chrome was one part Nagi, one part Mukuro, and all _his_. His Flames reached out before she had even walked through the doors of the gym and Sky met Mist in a rush of _mineminemine_.

As Chrome wondered in and up to Tsuna, slipped into his personal space and pressed warm lips to his cheek with a soft, questioning greeting of " _boss?_ " Tsuna surreptitiously slipped the Vongola half mist ring onto her finger.

 _Yes_ , this motion said.

Chrome smiled, and Tsuna could sense Mukuro shining through.

"Well?" The Cervello said. "Is this the CEDEF's Mist representative?"

"Yes," Tsuna said clearly. "This is the one that will become Vongola's Mist guardian."

The Varia chortled at Tsuna's words, but he didn't flinch like he once would have, and Chrome remained steadfast.

(To his intuition, his words rung true, like he had recited a prophesy of old.)

[x]

It wasn't until the entire Varia fiasco had been resolved (and Hibari _had_ turned up for his match, and had claimed the cloud ring as his own, surprisingly) that Chrome approached Tsuna for what she wanted, as he knew she would.

(The full sky ring of the Vongola now glinted on a chain around his neck, and it was with a smile that Chrome slid it onto the middle finger of his right hand before pressing a kiss to it.)

"Boss," she said seriously, meeting his eyes as her grip tightened on her hand. "Do you...you know what I'm here for, don't you?"

Tsuna nodded. "I figured it out, after your battle with Mammon. Your organs, Mukuro," here he sent a sad smile her way. "You want to die, don't you."

It wasn't a question.

Chrome took it as such though, and answered him. "Yes," she said breathlessly. "And I want you to be the one to do it."

Tsuna stilled.

(Chrome took the initiative. His right hand, which still held the Vongola ring, was lifted up to be placed against her neck. She curled Tsuna's fingers around her throat and tilted her head back, eyes closed, in a twisted parody of a loving caress. Tsuna could have sworn he felt the presence of Mukuro hum eagerly, waiting, _wanting_ , under his fingertips.

"Please," Chrome whispered. "Let me be with him forever.")

And then there was heat.

[x]

Since meeting the Sawada boy, Reborn had come up with a theory.

That boy should have been born a mist.

The world was cruel, to grant such a small and shy child the draw and pull of a sky, but none of the charisma. He would have been nothing more than a smorgasboard for the bullies and other demons of childhood.

After all, among all the horrors and evils of the world, children were quite often the cruelest, the most malicious.

If, instead, he had been born with the properties of a proper mist class, maybe he cold have hidden himself in the shadows, like he so desperately wanted to. Maybe he could have been _safe_.

(But as Reborn saw the way he gravitated towards his mist - the girl-boy-guardian that was his first -

\- "And _last_ ," Tsuna insisted, to no avail. -

\- kill, he couldn't help but think that, just maybe, the boy had found _his_ mist, after all.)

[x]

"Congratulations, Dame Tsuna," Reborn said. "You win the prize of having the most functioning dead guardians in history. I'm pretty sure you're going to be the only mafia boss ever with _all_ dead guardians."

"The cow brat is still alive," Gokudera pointed out _helpfully_ , emphasis Tsuna's, because that _was not helpful at all, Gokudera-kun_.

"True," Reborn hummed, and hefted up Leon, in the form of a gun. "I could fix that for you if you wanted, Dame Tsuna. Go for a complete set."

"Abso _lutely not!_ "

 **4| "Please stop petting the test subjects."**

Verde had no idea how he had gotten roped into this.

Acutally, no, he did have an idea. Reborn had asked him for a favour, and he had said no. Reborn had brought out the guns, and that 'no' became a 'yes' in about .0001 of a second.

Not because he was _afraid_ of Reborn, because he wasn't sure what Reborn's crazy lizard gunpowder would do in the volatile area of his lab.

However, this... _child_ , couldn't be good for his lab either, considering the way it was giggling and cuddling the rabbits, which it had _let out of their cages_.

"Tsunayoshi, wasn't it?" Verde said tightly. "Could you, _please_ , stop petting my test subjects?"

 **5| "What the hell, this is, like, the tenth demon summoning this** _ **week**_ **."**

When alarms start going off inside Tsunayoshi Sawada's brain (metaphorically), he stiffens in his seat.

 _What the hell_ , he wonders, baffled. _This is, like, the tenth one this week_.

And of course, it was only a Wednesday.

[x]

Allow me to explain:

Iemitsu Sawada, father to one Tsunayoshi Sawada (call him Tsuna), was descended from one Giotto de Vongola, known to Tsuna as his great-great-great-grandfather Ieyasu Sawada, and thus had inherited the fabled Blood of the Vongola, and passed it on to his son. From this bloodline inheritance, Tsuna gained sky flames and hyper intuition.

Nana Sawada, nee Yuuki, mother to one Tsunayoshi Sawada, was the daughter of a great legacy of demon hunters and mages. She herself had never shown the slightest aptitude for any of her family's more arcane talents, except for the occasional eerily accurate insight to people's inner selves. However, much like blonde hair, these things were known to skip a generation, and mixed with the intuition granted from his fathers side, Tsuna was essentially a walking sensor for all things supernatural.

Tsuna sighed and vowed to visit the Hibari compound this afternoon, before things got any more serious. He would just allow the professionals to handle it, no matter what his intuition said.

(He did have to wonder, though - just what was Shoichi Irie trying to achieve, to be summoning so many demons and so frequently?

-END-

 **1|** I literally could not decide who or what to write for this one. Gokudera chasing after the stray that stole his wallet and encountering Tsuna, whom both Uri and Gokudera fall into insta-love with, and call a truce to allow them to grow closer to him through a series of increasingly complicated crimes? They could become the cat burglar? But then Enma kicked me. This is AU in which that the mafia still exists, but the heirs were not killed, and Gokudera was raised by Lavina in Namimori as a child. I'm not sure how Lambo and I-Pin turned up at the Sawada's. Maybe they have Mama-Nana radar.

 **2|** This is totally canon. It was totally canon, and don't even try to deny it. I didn't even have to think hard for inspiration, this prompt fit the fandom so perfectly.

 **3|** Wow, this one dragged on forever. I love it though. No shipping with anyone, but if you want to see it that way, feel free. Tsuna comes off as slightly OOC, but I stand by the fact that it is because he met Reborn so much earlier. The problem with canon is the timing involved, especially around Vongola's succession issues. I stand by the fact that Xanxus wouldn't have initiated the Cradle Affair while his brothers were alive, but it doesn't make sense that Vongola would wait so long to claim there successor or have him trained. Or even send him body guards. So in this AU, Xanxus and the Varia started the Cradle Affair while all the other heirs were still alive with the intention to slaughter them all. However, as Tsuna states, something was incredibly _wrong_ with the Varia, which is a plot point that will come in at a later date. (Yes, I am continuing this AU. I was going to go up the the Future Arc, in this snip, but I was just going on and on and needed to find a place to end it.) Reborn was sent to train Tsuna _solely_ as a Necromancer at age twelve, but prioirties changed two years later when the other heirs were killed off. At this point Tsuna was aware of the mafia and had pretty much fully integrated the realities of death into his life, which is why his personality is different to his canon one. At some point, I will explain the backstory for this AU, namely the first generation, and why Tsuna's bloodline is locked only onto Necromancy.

 **4|** I'm sorry I couldn't resist. AU where Arcobaleno's do not have cursed forms and Reborn is Tsuna's godfather/uncle figure. I don't know. Something about chibi!Tsuna, bunnies, and flustered!Verde makes me happy. IDK

 **5|** Oh, Shoichi. Basically an AU in which the mafia and flames are a thing, but so are demons. The Hibari clan may be filled with mixed bloods, or simply filled with exceptionally powerful mages and hunters. No-one is brave enough to question them. Tsuna is basically an informant for them, due to his special ability. I kinda imagined that Shoichi was somehow summoning different parralel versions of demon!Byakuran. For what reason, I don't know. Science?

This five prompt thing might become a series. I don't know, but I have IDEAS.


	2. 06 - 10 Night Vale

So when I said all prompts would come from Tumblr, I kind of lied, because this chapter (and therefore snapshots six through ten) have been brought to you by Night Vale. Their tweets are a great source of both inspiration and amusement. Check them (and their podcast) out.

I'm glad people liked the last chapter, especially #3. I worked hard on that one, so it is nice to be appreciated.

I change tense on a dime without even noticing so I apologise for that, and also for spelling Yamamoto's name as Yamamato last chapter. I don't even know why. Sorry for the small typos here and there - I am not the greatest at self-editing and I have no spellchecker on my computer.

Thank you for the reviews! Some worried about the length and abrubtness of some (particularly #5). Understandable, but I liked keeping that verse short, succint, and open. I'll probably continue it at a later date. IDK. Feel free to continue any of these for yourself as long as you link it back to me so I can read it, too!

As always, all of these may be continued at a later date. I have infinite ideas. Most chapters in the future will be around this length to three thousand words, nowhere near the length of the monster of a first chapter. Also, I am posting again so fast as a bit of an early birthday present! I'm going to sleep now, but when I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll be eighteen, so yay for crushing responsibility and adulthood! *blows novelty trumpet thing*

This is also on AO3, and that version will probably be updated more frequently, as I am on AO3 daily Mon - Fri, and rarely post on due to access issues (Damn you, Department of Education, for blocking all of the _fun_ sites.)

(Fair warning: _wayyyy_ OOC Kawahira and Wonomichi ahead but, *shrugs* whoop-de-do, what do you do?)

Explanations and inspirations behind the shots will be down the bottom in numerical order.

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 **6| Look within yourself. But to do that, you'll need to find your body. The police are still searching. No luck though.**

It takes Tsuna a while to realise that he is, in fact, dead.

Honestly, he isn't even sure how it happened. He remembers walking up the stairs to his room after wishing his mother a good night, remembers crawling into his bed and closing his eyes; drifting off to sleep.

When he awoke, the house was empty, cold and abandoned. Dust had gathered on the walls and furniture, plumes of it rising lazily into the air, spiralling, when he sat down on the sofa. The electricity was off.

 _Where is my mother?_ Tsuna wondered. _What has happened here?_

(His mother, grieving and broken, bitter at the world, at her husband, at the law and at the mafia, is in Italy, drinking away her sorrows with the finest liquor Sicily has to offer.)

What has happened is this: Tsuna has been missing for six months. The police had no luck finding him, and yet are still searching.

All Tsuna remembers about his death is his killer - violet eyes and the scent of spun sugar, a whisper, a giggle, " _tsu~na~yosh~i~kun."_

He hopes the police have realised they will only find his body. And he hopes they find it soon, track his killer down.

Because that strange white haired man isn't done quite yet - and Tsuna isn't sure why, but the name _Yuni_ pops into his mind and he feels sorrow.

(In a Sicilian bar, Byakuran laughs.)

[X]

 **7| Confused? At a loss for what to do? Wow, sounds like you're human. Good luck.**

The jokes had been coming for years - _Oh, I can't_ wait _to see you go through puberty, Reborn_ , they said with smirks.

(Of course, the worlds strongest hitman, now about seven years old and feeling petulant for it, punishes them for their presumption.)

However, they have become used to Reborn's moods and violence over the years, and they no longer hold the same terror-inspiring effect on the Vongola Decimo and his guardians.

("Reborn!" Gokudera had once gasped out, arm clutched around his stomach, "with acne!"

Reborn had frowned as the rest of them dissolved into giggles - _frowned_ , not _pouted_ , no matter what Dame-Tsuna said.)

"So," and Tsuna's smile was tight now, as he looked over his desk at the now fourteen year old Reborn, "what is it, exactly, that you wanted to talk about?"

Reborn scowled. "I have a problem," he admitted.

Tsuna's smile tightened even more. Reborn couldn't tell if his former student, now occasional boss, was holding back laughter or tears. "Oh?" he said mildly.

"There's this girl," Reborn said slowly. "A woman, really, and I want you to use you power as Vongola Decimo to call her over here without her overbearing guardians. If you would. Please." At this point, Reborn was clearly struggling to get his words out through grited teeth.

Thankfully, Vongola's Hyper Intuition struck once again. Tsuna's eyes flared briefly orange before widening. "Aria-san?" He said questioningly. "Why on earth would you want to..." Tsuna trailed off, paling. "No," he whispered, " _oh_ , oh _no_."

Reborn shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. Damn hormones, making him emotional and nostalgic. Damn teenage body, for being suspectible to them.

Damn puberty.

"Look, Tsuna," he sighed. "Are you going to help me reconnect with my daughter, or not?"

( _Uncle_ , Yuni had called Reborn in the future that would never be.

Tsuna wondered if she knew just how wrong she was.)

[X]

 **8| When a person dies and no-one will miss them, the mourning is assigned to a random human. This is why you sometimes just feel sad.**

"Hey, Kawahira."

"Yeah, Wonomichi?"

"Check this out."

"Wow. That's some Sky."

"Very big. A large heart."

"Mmm. I'd reckon you'd fit a lot of love in there."

"Probably a lot of grief, too."

[x]

The doctors tell Tsuna he is depressed.

His mother cries over this fact. Tsuna does not.

Tsuna does not _feel_ depressed. He feels sad, and though he is only twelve, he knows and understands that these two things are _fundamentally different._

Sometimes, Tsuna will cry. No reason, he will just cry as a mantra of seemingly random names fly through his mind.

\- _Meixang, Anna, Mitchel, Tohru, Brigid, Jackson, Paulo_ -

They make him feel sad, but contradictorily, happy as well. These names feel like maybe-once-could-have-been friends. He feels as if the tears he sheds for their sake creates happiness, and this cheers him.

The kids at school call him weird when he bursts into tears in the middle of class. His mother is caring but tired, uncertain, and confused; not sure exactly what is wrong with her son but worried all the same. When he speaks to his father on the rare occasions the man bothers to pick up a phone and remember their existence, he can hear Iemitsu's caution, as if the man is afraid one wrong word will cause the child to break.

He shouldn't worry. Tsuna hasn't broken yet, after all.

(When Reborn comes into his life with the dramatic entrance of ' _BANG! HEADSHOT!_ ' in those few seconds before his so called 'Dying Will' - whatever the hell that is - floods through his body and takes him over, Tsuna swears he could see the smiling faces of so many people standing against the orange hued, most open sky Tsuna has ever laid eyes on.

And, somehow, just as their presence fills him with nostalgia, he feels as though he could name them all.)

[x]

A smirk. "I told you, Kawahira. A lot of grief."

"And as I told you, Wonomichi - a lot of love."

[X]

 **9| The right thing to do is help your neighbour. You must help your neighbour. Do not turn your back on your neighbour. He may attack.**

The day young Tsunayoshi Sawada's life takes a turn for the weird, if not worst, is the day that the Hibari compound up near the grounds of Namimori shrine mysteriously burns to the ground.

(The youngest Hibari, Kyoya, a boy a year above Tsuna in grades, who has already garnered himself quite the fearsome reputation among Namimori Primary, spends the entire day stalking around school with a terrifying look on his face.)

When Tsuna gets home that afternoon, relieved that he hadn't, in some Dame way, managed to draw the ire of his senpai upon himself, he sees his mother waiting for him at the front gate. Curiously, he runs the last leg of the way home.

"Tsu-kun!" His mother smiles and ruffles his hair. "We're getting some new neighbours!" She points to the house next to theirs, and Tsuna turns and cranes his neck to catch a glimpse.

He then squeaks and ducks down.

(In the front yard of the house next door, one Kyoya Hibari frowns, and glances around.

He could have sworn he felt a herbivorous gaze upon him.)

Tsuna is terrified and shaking, and his mother is giggling quietly while shaking her head and looking down upon her 'silly boy.'

In that moment, Tsuna vows to be as accomadating to Hibari-san as he possibly can, even if only to escape being bitten to death.

[X]

 **10| When you wish upon a star, it's actually a satellite, and your wish has been recorded and catalogued. An agent is now assigned to your case.**

 _I wish...I just want a friend_ , Tsuna thought, gazing up at the night sky through his bedroom window, eyes fixated on the brightest star out there. _Just one, please? That's not too much to ask, is it?_ Absently, the youngest of the small Sawada family scratched at the elbow of his left arm, which had been bruised and scraped when the older boys had shoved him down earlier that day. The healing skin stung and itched, and Tsuna danced his fingers around the torn edges of the mild wound, not touching it directly as his mother had always told him to do.

(Kawahira stared down at the kid who was quite possibly the cutest ball of human fluff he had ever seen.

Wonomichi blinked at Kawahira. "What is it?" he asked.

Kawahira pointed.

"Well, shit," Wonomichi summed up eloquently.

Kawahira nodded in solemn agreement. "It seems even we are not immune to the power of... _moe_.")

[x]

Yamamoto was the first to arrive. He had always known Tsuna, in the way he had always known Kensuke Mochida, Hana Kurokawa, Hibari-senpai, and the Sasagawa siblings. They were all just a part of daily life in Namimori.

True, others called the small boy 'Dame,' and pushed him around a lot, but Yamamoto had never really paid much attention before.

 _Isn't he cute and helpless?_ Whispered a voice inside his head, that for some reason took the form of a man wearing a fedora with a lizard on top. _Do you not wish for and seek purpose?_

Takeshi Yamamoto swallowed.

Then he stepped forward, and pulled one of the older boys off of Tsuna.

"Hey," he snapped out. "Don't touch my friend."

[x]

Gokudera was next. A man wearing a fedora had turned up in a dream, pointed a lizard at him that had then turned into a gun, and shot at him while smirking and yelling about Japan until he woke up.

His sister and legal guardian, Bianchi, probably thought he was insane when he came downstairs babbling about UMA's and Japan. However, when he said he needed to get there as soon as possible, Bianchi saw a light in his eyes that hadn't been there since the death of his birth mother, and agreed readily, stating it was because she had been planning to spend some time with Romeo, anyway.

(Gokudera did not have the heart to tell his sister her relationship was little more than a beaten flat horse at this point.)

After arriving in Namimori, Japan, and a series of misunderstandings involving a certain demon prefect and a panicking Tsunayoshi (featuring Takeshi laughing genially in the background), Gokudera forgot all about his hunt for UMA's due to his regard for his Tsuna-sama.

(Anyway, something _that_ moecouldn't _possibly_ be fully human. Maybe he'd find his UMA yet.)

[x]

Kyoya Hibari dealt with the carnivorous, fedora wearing hallucination the same way he dealt with most - okay, _all_ \- of his problems.

With _violence_.

Of course, given that he was immaterial, this did not have any effect. And that smirk was starting to _piss Hibari off_.

He discovered one day while on patrol that the hallucination would sometimes disappear - and always when Hibari was within radius of one specific herbivore, named Tsunayoshi Sawada.

It was with a great deal of suffering and elegance that Hibari began to spend his lunchtimes with Sawada and his group. It appeared that this amount of contact a day was enough to appease the hallucination, for as long as he did this, it would leave him alone.

("Do not think this makes us friends, little herbivore," Hibari muttered one day.

"Okay, Hibari-san," Tsuna agreed readily as Gokudera muttered darkly in the background and Yamamoto laughed. "Would you like this bento my mother prepared for you?"

Hibari was _not_ blushing as he took the wrapped parcel from Tsunayoshi - that is to say, Sawada.)

[x]

Kawahira blinked. "Oh no. Oh, _no_."

Wonomichi blinked. "He isn't."

"Oh, yes, he _is._ "

"Whose idea was it to assign Reborn to this case?

" _Yours_."

"Well, this...this will _not_ end well."

 _"No shit_."

[x]

(In Namimori:

"Kufufufu~")

Tsuna screamed.

(Reborn smirked, and tilted his fedora down to cover the laughter in his eyes, never mind that the human children couldn't see him. This was probably the most fun he had had on a case since that stupid lackey stuntman that called himself Skull.)

-END-

 **6|** Well, this was dark (at least compared to what I wrote last chapter) which is actually saying something, considering a good chunk of the last chapter was about corpses. This was originally going to be a supernatural kind of police procedural featuring Arcobaleno detectives, but then my motivation for that kind of died out so it became this instead. Also, Byakuran kills Nana, in case it wasn't obvi.

 **7|** Hahaha, teenagers. And hormones. And Aria is Reborn's daughter, and you cannot convince me otherwise. I don't know, I felt like being cliche about this one.

 **8|** Poor Tsuna. This one just fit his personality so well I couldn't resist. Yeah, everyone's favourite (or least favourite, I guess) uncle was way out of character in this. *vague handwave/shrugging motion of author* In any case, I'm pretty sure Kawahira and Wonomichi are eldritch abominations of some kind. Probably. _Probably_.

 **9|** Rest in peace, sweet child Tsuna, for we barely knew thee. I kid, I kid. But can you just _imagine_ what Tsuna's childhood would have been like if our adorable Hibari-san lived next door? How advanced his intuition would be? His ability to sense killing intent? His ability to dodge things, like...oh, I don't know, tonfas? (and maybe bullets?) How his inner monologue has been so warped and twisted over the years that he keeps mentally reffering to people as 'herbivores,' and 'carnivores?' Imagine Reborns reaction when Tsuna in HDWM against Mukuro starts babbling about the animal kingdom and 'biting people to death.' Excuse me for a sec while I go and die laughing.

 **10|** Probably my favourite one this go around. Thank you, Gokudera, for your love of UMA's. And you, Hibari, for your tsundere ways. And you, Reborn, for Mukuro (that there at the end was Mukuro, in case you couldn't tell. I wanted to write it but didn't feel I could translate it properly to the page, so feel free to imagine it however. Tell me what you came up with in a PM, comment, or review.

.[x].

If you have questions about any shot written, I am far more likely to answer in depth on AO3. There were questions put forward last chapter that I want to answer but won't on

I'll post some form of answer on AO3, but you'll have to check out ASFoS there to see it. Feel free to send in your own prompts and requests! It's always nice for some outside inspiration n.n

Next chapter: shots inspired by 'Will You Press The Button?'  
Posting date: Unknown, as of yet, but definitely within a fortnight (so around the fifteenth of September at the latest)


	3. 11 - 15 Will You Press the Button?

Well hello again dear readers, and welcome to another chapter written amidst the mess that is my life.

( _'I know what you are.'_

 _'Say it. Say it out loud.'_

 _'One hell of a hot mess.'_

 _'AND AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH.'_ )

So basically, I have a million IP's due in my college courses, end of year exams are about a month and a lil' bit a way, and what am I doing?

Fanfiction. I am doing fanfiction, because that is what functioning adults out there in the real world do. Obviously.

Responses to last chapter were okay, by which I mean no-one jumped down my throat for the abominations that were Kawahira and Wonomichi (and right now I speak of literary abominations of charactersiation, not eldritch ones). I'll probably do another chapter later with more Night Vale inspirations, so if you liked last chapter, look forward to that!

Anyway, this chapter is brought to you by _Will You Press the Button?_ It is a great website with vast amounts of amusement on it, so go check it out when you have a spare hour. Trust me, time will _fly_.

Normally shot-specific notes would go at the bottom in numerical order, but I feel I should say that eleven is a continuation of five.

Onto shots eleven through fifteen!

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 **11| You recieve a gradual weekly income of $1,000 for the rest of your life** BUT **your job? You must travel and hunt demons, endangering your wellbeing, and never settle down for the rest of your life.**

Tsuna stared down at the paper Hibari-san had shoved into his hands the moment he had arrived on the roof. "What is this?"

Hibari did _not_ snort, but if he had, it would have expressed an emotion along the lines of _'herbivore.'_

(And yes, that is an emotion - at least to one of the Hibari clan. It is a mix of exasperation and disgust, swinging either way depending on the herbivore in person. For Tsuna, it comes across as an almost fondness, as while the fluffy herbivore may have been a plant eater like the rest of the herding masses, gentle and timid and generally happy to follow along behind a strong leader, he wasn't _weak_ , per se.

Kyoya's mother had called him a leftover piece of the Mesozoic Era, and the youngest of the Hibari clan had to agree that it fit. Tsunayoshi was a herbivore, but his mannerisms were that of a herbivore from a time that had long since passed, when herbivores had to be as quick and clever and deadly as the ones who hunted them.)

"That is your payment, herbivore." Hibari said. "The Shoichi Irie you told us about was meddling with dangerous powers. My clan head thanks you for the early alert - if we had not caught the problem when we did, we could have been looking at a full-scale demonic invasion of Namimori by the end of the school term. As it is, it is still fairly bad. Many types of demons not seen for centuries have been sighted roaming Namimori territory."

Tsuna blinked. " _What?_ " he questioned in a high-pitched voice. "My senses have been all over the place this past week - are you saying that it's because of demons crossing the threshold?"

Hibari inclined his head.

Tsuna spluttered. "Well - that - just - it's just great, you know? Just _perfect_."

Hibari stared at Tsuna from his position at the edge of the roof where he had perched himself, so as to look over his claimed territory. "My mother wishes to see you, herbivore."

Tsuna blanched. Kimiko Hibari wanted to see _him?_ He had met the woman only twice before, and only one of those did he remember. The first had been when he was only newborn - it was tradition in Namimori for all children born to be brought before the head of the Hibari clan to be blessed and claimed as part of their territory, to be protected. Kimiko Hibari had apparently glanced one look at him, given him the name 'Kyo,' and stalked off after performing the small blessing as was tradition.

(For the longest time, Tsuna had just presumed that the head of the Hibari clan had meant that he had looked like an apricot when he was a newborn, and while Nana had giggled at him, she hadn't made any move to correct him either, so he had presumed he was right.

In truth, Kimiko's 'eyes' had pierced straight through Tsunayoshi Sawada's spirit and seen the strong core of it that would aid her clan, and honoured him with a name worthy of such - Kyo, after all, would become an ally of their clan.)

The second and last time they had met had been when Tsuna was around twelve years old, when the changes within his body had been echoed throughout his spirit and the gifts his mother's latent bloodline had handed down to him. Confused and scared, when he had told his mother she had sent him to the Namimori shrine where he spoke with one of the priestesses, who came from a branch family of the Hibari clan, when the head of the clan had stalked into the room and pulled Tsuna away with a singular cold glance. She had only talked him through some meditations and exercises, but it had honestly been the most terrifying day of Tsuna's life ever, and that was saying something.

"Why does Hibari-sama wish to see me?" he asked warily.

Hibari shrugged, a strangely casual motion for him. "I did not ask. She requested I bring you to her after school." Hibari's gaze cut from Tsuna's face into the sky. "Do not be late, Kyo."

Tsuna gulped at the use of his _shukutō_ name. Everyone born of Namimori had one, even his mother had one (the clan head of the main Hibari branch before Kimiko, her grandfather, Michio Hibari, had given her the name Ryo, and everyone agreed that Nana did indeed shine brightly), but they were rarely used outside of one observing the old forms or on ritual and festival nights, and were _never_ given to or spoken of around outsiders. Iemistu had no such name as he had not been born within Namimori even if he had lived there with his _wife_ for years. It was whispered that the entirety of Namimori had released a deep sigh of relief when Iemitsu had gone overseas for work, as the members of the Hibari clan that had felt restless in the presence of the outsider were now relaxed - at least, they were relaxed as a Hibari ever got.

(There was a reason tourists never came to Namimori, and why new arrivals didn't last all that long.)

That Hibari felt the need to use it _now_ , of all times...

"I will not be late," Tsuna spoke formally and bowed deep, before turning to leave.

[x]

The dark eyes of Kimiko Hibari gazed through - _into_ \- Tsuna, and he tried not to fidget.

"Kyo," she greeted. "You have made yourself useful yet again. The clan thanks you."

Tsuna, slowly, tilted his head down in respect. "You honour me," he said formally. "This one requests to know why you have called him here, clan leader."

Tsuna - indeed, all members of the Namimori community, were considered members of the Hibari clan, even if only peripherally or in name only. This required a certain amount of forms to be observed in a meeting such as this.

"This clan leader grants your request," Kimiko said. "Hard times are coming to the clan, Kyo, I can see it."

Tsuna knew, in this moment, that Kimiko did not mean 'see' in the common sense. She meant she could 'see' the hard times ahead the same way she could 'see' through Tsunayoshi into Kyo.

"Your power could be useful," Kimiko continued thoughtfully, dark eyes glinting as they took Tsuna in. "You hold a responsibility to your clan, Kyo."

Tsuna gulped. "A responsibility, clan leader?"

"You will learn to fight, Kyo," Kimiko said. "You will be taught to hunt. You will earn your place within this clan through trial of blood."

Tsuna wanted to scream - he was only a peripheral clan member, more an aspect of the territory belonging to the Hibari then a person of the clan himself. But instead, he simply said, "you honour this one, clan leader."

[x]

"You will be the one to teach Kyo, little lark," Kimiko told her son later that night, once the Sawada boy had left. "After all, he shall be your partner."

Kyoya made an aborted noise of protest.

With a wry half smile, Kimiko waved her sons disbelief off carelessly. "You forget yourself, little lark, as you forget both the true strength of our Kyo and just how deeply I can see. Your fates have always been entwined."

(Kyoya grumbled, but gave no other sign of disagreement.)

[x]

Reborn stared down at the admittedly small file he had been given. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. "Iemitsu, Timoteo?"

The head of the CEDEF grimaced and Vongola Nono sighed.

"We simply have no other options," Timoteo said gravely. "I wish we could leave young Tsunayoshi to his peaceful life, but Vongola must come first."

Iemitsu's eyes darkened. "I would advise you to be careful," he said, his tone and face blank as he obviously struggled to maintain his careful neutrality. "Namimori has always been a bit of a weird place, and it doesn't take well to outsiders coming in, at least not for any significant amount of time. As much as one neighbour may hate another, they close ranks when someone not of their own appears. They're all tight-lipped bastards, and this old family - the Hibari's - pretty much own the town and the surrounding communities. I haven't spoken to my wife or son in near on five years, now, and I have no idea how being raised in that freakshow will have affected his mentality or personality." The Sawada's eyes implored the hitman to understand the message he was trying to get across.

"Hn," Reborn snorted. "I won't fail, Baka-Iemitsu, so there is no need for you to worry. I'll bring your family back home."

 **12| All of your friends and family would achieve their hopes and dreams** BUT **you would die.**

Over the years, Tsunayoshi Sawada, Vongola Neo Primo, Vongola _Decimo_ , had been called many things among his well known titles.

'Generous.' 'Kind.' 'Protective.'

But these were merely the benign sides of the truth shown and seen by the public.

You see, Tsunayoshi Sawada was a very, very selfish man.

[x]

 _("Are you sure this is what you want, Tsunayoshi-kun? This...this will kill you, you know."_

 _From the back ground, a faint, feminine sob._

 _"If I wasn't sure I wouldn't be here. This_ is _what I want. Now, are you going to help me, or not?")_

[x]

"Congratulations, son!" Tsuyoshi Yamamoto smiled at his pride and joy, his son, Takeshi.

Takeshi grinned. "A full scholarship, dad, can you believe it?" The youngest Yamamoto hefted up the bat that had won him the attention of a scout that had come to see the last game of the national middle school league.

Tsuyoshi's eyes crinkled as he smiled."Of course I can believe it, son."

Takeshi turned, mouth opening as if to address someone standing to the side of him. He then paused, and frowned. "Huh," he muttered, wondering why exactly he was thinking of orange flames and lucky rope.

 _(Sadly, Tsuna smiled. "Don't worry, Takeshi," he said. "I won't let anyone or anything take your dream away from you this time. I swear it.")_

[x]

Gokudera sucked in a sharp breath as he came to. Where was he, again?

Oh, right. Florence. Specifically, a back alley in Florence, after getting a little too sure of himself around some of the local mafioso. Wincing as he pulled his tender and bruised body into a sitting position before using the wall of the alley as leverage to get unsteadily to his feet, he cursed.

A flash of orange, a blur of brown hair in the corner of his eyes; Gokudera disregarded it. He was probably hallucinating - maybe a concussion?

He needed to try harder. Next time, he would manage to make his way into the Vongla and prove to everyone - his sister, his father, Shamal - once and for all, he could manage on his own.

 _(Pain darkened Tsuna's eyes. "Oh, Hayato," he murmured. "I'll watch over you until you find the right path, I swear it. You've done so much for me. Now it is my turn to take care of you.")_

[x]

Ryohei roared as one final punch took his opponent out for the count.

Kyoko was in the stands, cheering, with that cute friend of hers - Kurokawa.

He grinned - what else could he want with life?

 _(Tsuna let a faint smile brush across his face, there and gone within a matter of seconds._

 _There was nothing for him to do here, as Ryohei - onii-san - was right on track._

 _Then again, the only reason he never made it this far 'before,' was due to Tsuna's interference.)_

[x]

Nagi coughed as she woke up in her hospital bed. For one horrible moment she couldn't breathe, but then she reminded herself - that was all past her now. She had new organs within her now.

Tear pricked at the corners of her eyes - she wasn't going to die.

In the back of her mind, Mukuro-sama sent a smidgen of warmth, the hint of a smile her way. _Congratulations, my dear Chrome,_ she felt him murmur. _I look forward to seeing you whole, the first time we meet in person_.

A choked sob of happiness, of gratitude, made its way out of Nagi's throat.

She didn't know much about her donor - but she did know their name, and that, somehow, the organs had been stated to be given directly to her. "Decimo," she mused out loud, the name given as the donors. Mukuro-sama had informed her it meant 'tenth,' in Italian.

She wondered if she would ever be able to thank him.

 _(Tsuna smiled through the tears gathering in his eyes. Of all his regrets, this was one of his greatest. His sweetest guardian, his mist, his Chrome, had never in his life of 'before,' been fully whole. To see her like this, healing, on the mend, free to live her life the way she wanted -_

 _\- well. It was nothing short of a dream come true.)_

[x]

Sometimes, Nana Sawada would blink, confused as she made her way through the daily errands she had assigned herself to ward off boredom while waiting for her husband to return home to her, and feel a deep, inexplicable sadness. When these moments overtook her, she felt as if there was an aching, gaping hole of emptiness within her heart, and she could not hold back her tears.

Kyoya Hibari grew up into the protector of Namimori he had always planned to be. As he grew out of his awkward teenage phase and realised that, surprisingly, violence wasn't _always_ the answer, the people of the Namimori community welcomed his presence among them a great deal more. All was right with the world, though sometimes, he would find himself searching for a certain fluffy herbivore that had never existed.

( _at least not in this world_ )

 **13| You can shapeshift into any form you choose** BUT **people will always know it's you.**

Considering just how old he _really_ was, and how much life experience he had amassed within that timeframe, Reborn _really_ should have known better.

[x]

It started around a year after the Arcobaleno curse had been broken. For the most part, life had gone back to normal for the tenth generation of Vongola - brutal training administered by Reborn, who was now around seven years old and still kicking all their asses seven ways from Sunday simultaneously.

(Even if they didn't admit it, each guardian lived in fear of the day Reborn gained a fully adult form, and prayed that they, too, would've grown by then.)

What happened was this: Reborn had gone up to the Namimori shrine one day, out of curiousity. He had been there before, of course - when scouting the town after his first arrival and while looking into the Hibari clan, and a few other times besides, but he had never really gone into the shrine proper, or spent any significant amount of time there, or spoken to any of the shrine's caretakers. They were all from branch families of the main Hibari clan, and though each had their own name they were known under the title of the clan they belonged to.

Emi Hibari, one of the younger girls at the shrine at the age of fifteen, had been the one to greet him on the steps of the shrine, broom in hand. "Hitman," she had greeted. "This shrine does not welcome ones such as you here."

Reborn raised a brow. "Oh?"

"Your spirit is stained," Emi glared at him balefully. "Your hand drip blood, and you use them to taint the young of the herd of Namimori. The town proper is not my territory, and I cannot stop you there. However, the shrine and its care belongs to _this_ Emi Hibari, and I will not let a man such as you pass."

"Your clan has spilt just as much, if not more, blood as me," Reborn reminded her, not arguing her judgement or making a move further up the shrine steps, simply making an observance.

Emi's eyes narrowed. "Blood spilt for the sake of Namimori, and to protect the herd. Not for the sake of buisness deals or _contracts_." It seemed almost as if lightning sparked in the air between them. "Emi was the name given to this one, meaning 'beautiful blessing.' Though I am young I have talents that make my supervision over the shrine sensible and needed. I will not allow you to pass, hitman, but I will give you a gift."

"A gift is sometimes poison," Reborn said.

"And yet, it should still never be thrown back to the one who gives it. My gift is this; a blessing, and a curse. You are a man who relies on disguise, no? Well, until you see who you truly are inside, your disguises will be as transparent as the words you poison the young flock members with."

Reborn laughed. "Emi-san, I assure you, I already know myself quite well."

"Well then, Renato," Emi smiled tightly. "You have nothing to worry about then, do you?"

[x]

As impossible as it seemed, the curse the Emi girl placed upon him was, indeed, real. Whereas before his disguises were an amusement to him as he watched his dame student shift into hysterical disbelief and then despair at how only he could see through the costumes to the Arcobaleno sun that lay underneath, now while in disguise he was greeted by the others with a mildly confused blink followed by a tilted head and a squint, and then -

\- "Hey, Reborn."

Going back to the shrine was no use, Reborn knew. The terms for this curse had been layed out very clearly, and Emi was as stubborn as all Hibari's. She would not back down from the 'gift,' she had given.

Therefore, only one thing remained to do - answer the question and figure out just who, exactly, he was on the inside.

 _Now, where to start?_

 **14| You can use the force** BUT **everytime you enter a room the Imperial March plays.**

They were seventeen when they discovered it.

Mist flames had always been one of the most unknown quantities of the arcane arts practiced by the _famiglia alleate_. They were capable of literally anything the wielder could imagine or dream, granted that they had enough power for it.

Of course, these were merely illusions.

However, in the case of Mukuro Rokudo and Chrome Dokuro, the mist guardians of the Vongola Decimo, the line between illusions and reality was a _little_ blurred.

The discovery of mental manipulation was a complete accident, honestly.

(A horrified representative from an allied family dropped to the ground, gasping for breath as the pressure that had been vice tight around his throat released.)

Mukuro's eyes were wide. He honestly hadn't _meant_ to do that, but this bastard had been being _far_ too disrespectful to his dear Chrome, and he had decided to _scare_ him a little.

The whole Darth Vader episode had really not been something he had expected.

(Gokudera, of course, acted as if Christmas had come true. "This is better than any UMA!" he had laughed. "The pineapple is a freaking _Sith!_ "

Tsuna had simply moaned, head in hands. _Deep breaths,_ the Decimo told himself. _Don't scream. Don't freak out._ )

After that, Spanner and Shoichi had rigged the base's PA system to blare the Imperial March when it registered his unique flame signature. On Christmas and other holidays, his gifts were usually Star Wars themed, specifically, Darth Vader. By the time Mukuro was twenty-one, he owned a grand total of thirteen light-sabers, and around thirty replica Death Stars of different sizes.

("Mukuro," Reborn informed him solemnly a year later on the celebration of Tsunayoshi's own twenty-first year, "I - "

"I swear to god, if the next words out of your mouth are ' _I am your father,'_ I am going to _murder all of you._ Slowly.")

 **15| You get one trillion dollars** BUT **you have to pretend to be gay for a year.**

When Takeshi Yamamoto was told these words by a strange man in an iron mask - "Call me Checkerface" - he agreed readily. After all, that much money? It could be a huge help both around the restaurant and to pay his way into a good college. He had no problem with pretending to be attracted to a member of his own gender for three-hundred-and-sixty-five days if it was for the sake of his family.

And lucky for him, he already had a target in mind.

(Lying in his bed on the other side of town, one Hayato Gokudera sneezed.)

-END-

 **11|** Now, this one was interesting, and Mana (who I had read through it) stated that it didn't really relate to the prompt. Well, the point of a prompt is to inspire you to write and so this one did.  
Kimiko - a Japanese female name. There are, of course, different meanings and 'spellings,' for this name. I chose (后子) meaning 'empress child.'  
On the subject of the _shukutō_ names: _shukutō_ means blessing. These are blessed names given by the Hibari clan head. When writing I was torn between using _shukutō_ (祝祷) and _shiawase_ (仕合わせ). Both mean 'blessing,' but of course each have other meanings to them. _Shukutō_ means both blessing and benediction, and the spiritual connotations were why I ended up choosing it over _shiawase_ , which also meant blessing, but more in the form of happiness and the hope for good luck.  
Kyo - (proper spelling Kyou) is a Japanese name with several meanings, such as 'apricot,' 'capital,' 'cooperation,' and 'village.' The Hibari clan give the name but keep the kanji used (and therefore the meaning) to themselves. Tsuna presumes Kimiko gave him the _shukutō_ (杏), meaning apricot. In truth, she gave him (協), meaning cooperation (alluding to his future among the clan).  
Ryo - Nana's _shukutō_ , which many presumed to be (亮), meaning 'brightness,' due to her personality as a child. (Other meanings include 'distant,' 'reality,' and 'refreshing.') The meaning I chose to use was (遼), meaning 'distant,' reffering to her seperation from her own spiritual heritage as well as from reality (which was another name pun) and her husband and son. I mean, let's face it, Nana is a bit of a ditz. Just a bit.  
This _will_ be continued further! If I wasn't planning on doing so I wouldn't have done so much world-building in this segment. So, what'd you guys think?

 **12|** Ahhhhh, my feels. Tsuna was talking to Byakuran, female sobbing was Yuni (my sweetest angel who will actually appear as a character in some story at some point, I hope). His guardians are all dead in his original world and guilt ridden, decides he will make it so that his guardians in the next world will not have their lives ruined by his dame existence. *wails* COME TO ME POOR BABY AND LET ME LOVE YOU. What makes me especially sad is the fact that this could totally happen in canon. Tsuna would of course do this for his loved ones *sobs*

 **13|** This was meant to be partway introducing a character for my demon!verse (shots five and eleven) and partway Reborn introspection. Not sure how that worked out, but imagining the looks on both Tsuna's and Reborn's faces as each of his disguises was continuously seen through made my day.  
(Tsuna: You mean...you can tell it's Reborn?  
Guardians: Who else would it be?  
Tsuna: so you mean you can see that Boreen-sensei and Reborn are the same person? Oh, thank god!  
Guardians: Tsuna, what are you talking about? Reborn doesn't look a thing like Boreen-sensei.  
Tsuna: ...  
Reborn: ...  
Guardians: ?  
Tsuna: -.-)

 **14|** Complete and utter _crack_ , in case you couldn't tell. Mukuro strolled into my headspace with the Imperial March blasting behind him, wearing a cape that he, uh, 'borrowed,' from Tsuna, and I was a goner to my sweet darling. I CANNOT REFUSE MY MUKURMUSE. (And yes, that is a thing.) Please don't take this seriously. And I'm not going to continue it. Probably.

 **15|** Short and sweet and ambiguous. I may continue at a later date. Probably not. Imagine the next year in their lives however you wish. Obviously not canon world. OOC Checkerface, because I like screwing with his characterisation. I actually don't ship Gokudera and Takeshi. My KHR OTP is Tsuna and Gokudera, and my OT3 (which outranks all other pairings I like within this fandom) is Tsuna, Gokudera and Chrome.

Next chapter will be brought to you by: shareasimages  
Posting date will be: Idk. I'll just say sometime before the fifteenth, again.


	4. 16 - 20 ShareAsImages

Hi! You know who sucks at being a responsible adult?

I do. I suck at being a responsible adult. I have homework that needs completing and exams that need studying for and over thirty hours of amateurly filmed footage to go through and edit into something resembling a good movie. (Yay for media courses.)

Anyway, this chapter has been sponsored by 'shareasimage,' which is a website allowing you to place text over pictures. People quite often use it to post images of prompts. Enjoy this latest installment!

Sixteen is a part of my demon!verse, but not really a continuation of eleven, due to the fact that it chronologically is first in the verse.

Probably won't update again for a while, maybe not a month. Hooray for exam season.

 **16| This week, my wife acquired magical powers.**

Iemitsu was not a nice person. He was a horrible husband, and he was pretty sure that he was also a failure of a father, even if Tsuna was too young to tell him so himself just yet.

(And he dreaded the day it _would_ come, when his adorable little boy who was thankfully more Nana than Iemitsu would look at him as he had looked at _his_ father - with fear, distrust, apathy.

With hate.)

Normally, he embraced this 'not nice-ness,' as this was what made him able to stay afloat in the ever darkening world that was his life in the mafia. But every once in a while, he needed a respite. A break from the darkness, just the smallest glimpse of the light he had so selfishly claimed for himself years ago.

(Nana deserved far, far more than he could offer her. Everytime he returned to Namimori - and it killed him inside that it wasn't home, that his _family_ wasn't home to him, not like Italy and the Family were - he half expected to see her with a new man, one who would stay with her at all times, who would be by her side and keep her warm and happy. He imagines this man being called 'dear,' by his wife, and his son, now three, babbling 'tou-san!,' at this man, and begins to weep, because he is so wretched he denies his family these things. Nana would never betray him like that.

She is far, far too good for him.)

From time to time, he would pull a sheaf of papers out of his desk and stare at them, trembling. Nana's enitre life revolved around waiting for him to return to her, he knew. Would it not be kinder to simply cut his poison out of her now? It would hurt her, yes, but surely she'd be better in the long run?

And then he breaks down, and knows he cannot do it, for he is a selfish, selfish bastard, not even worthy of being called a man.

He is merely a coward, afraid of being alone.

The least he can do is make himself available to the precious ones he has abandoned when they are in need of him. Nana has always asked for so very little, and has never called on the emergency line he gave her (except for that time Tsunayoshi went through every major childhood illness in the space of about a fortnight, and gave his mother a heart attack as she watched her baby suffer and thought he was dying), so when the very distinctive ringtone he has only heard once but knows like no other plays out, his blood freezes for a minute, and for a single, horrible second, coward that he is when it comes to all things family (regardless of strength when it comes to his _Family_ ) he considers letting it ring out. Surely Nana would leave a message if it was that important, and then he can think of an appropriate response as a battle plan ahead of time.

As he deliberates, the phone stops ringing, and then he hears Lal Mirch's voice from her desk outside of the closed doors of his office, saying " _Hello?_ "

Iemitsu almost swore as he remembered - he had made sure the entirety of his inner circle in the CEDEF had constant and permanent access to this line, in case something incapacited him and he could not get to it. Lal probably thought he was asleep again or something, but instead of wasting time attempting to wake him up and beat him into something resembling a functioning adult, she had more than likely remembered the importance Iemitsu had stressed about the status of this line and would not allow a woman and child to suffer any possible danger.

(Lal liked to pretend she was a hardass, even in her cursed form as a failed Arcobaleno, but she really was a softie at heart.)

"What?" Lal's voice was sharp, tense and cutting as a diamond wire. Even in the childish tones of her cursed form it was utterly terrifying to Iemitsu, not least because of what, exactly, it entailed. "Thank you for your call."

Iemitsu began to sweat as he heard the phone reciever click down, and a _thud_ as Lal began her way over to his office. "Hey, baka-Iemitsu," she spoke the derogatory term in Iemitsu's first language. "I know you're awake in there."

He sighed, and braced for pain. "Come in, Lal."

(Lal, of course, did so, with a kick to the door, followed by a kick to his face.

Iemitsu really wasn't sure what it was about the Arcobaleno and kicking. They barely even had legs to kick with.)

Valiantly biting back the words he wanted to say about her behaviour, he squinted as he pulled himself back into a sitting position and squinted at the blank-faced baby standing on his desk with her arms crossed. "Your wife called," she said. "That 'sweet Nana' of yours was quite hysterical. I asked about Tsunayoshi, and she said something about the hospital before she broke down screaming once again." Her eyes darkened as she tilted her head down to meet him eye to eye from his position, still on the floor. "Now, tell me, Iemitsu," she all but growled. "What do you plan to do next?"

"Uhh..." Iemitsu said. "I - I plan to...go...to Japan?" It came out as a question.

Lal Mirch smiled. It was about a reasurring as looking down the barrels of one of Reborn's guns. "Good boy," she said.

[x]

It was near on forty-eight hours later when Iemitsu finally touched down in Japan, and he was still yet to speak with Nana.

He was too terrified to. Nana, while always being fairly 'up in the clouds,' had never been high maintenence or overly emotional. The mention of their son that Lal had made had kept it so that his slowly thawing blood moved sluggishly throught his veins. It was the only explanantion he could think of for why his thought process was so slow.

Namimori had always been a strange town - closed off, private. Iemitsu himself was _technically_ from there, but being born in a town was far different from being raised in one. He wasn't sure of the full story, but his parents had fled Namimori the night he was born, only hours after the fact. Neither had ever wanted to speak of the place they were from or return, and given his less than stellar relationship with both his parents, Iemitsu had made his way there as soon as his work with the Vongola allowed.

The town was genuinely creepy, and ran more like a sovereign nation than a Japanese community. Iemitsu had hated it, except for one thing - his Nana. He had never managed to figure out just how Nana had managed to escape the hive-minded craziness of the rest of the town, but was he ever thankful for it.

The Hibari clan ran the town with an iron fist. They had for generations. It was Iemitsu's line that had, technically, founded Namimori, but the Hibari's had already lived on their 'sacred' land when Giotto, Ieyasu then, had arrived with the Family members he had escaped Italy with. The early settlement had drawn people from all over, and centuries down the line, it was still the same lines living within the boundaries and under the 'protection' of the Hibari's.

Iemitsu had never been welcome there. He was worse than an outsider in the eyes of the people, he was a traitor, come crawling home on his belly, only to leave again. He was poison and toxic for their town, and they had never wanted him. Only his status as a descendant of one of Namimori's founders had allowed him leeway enough to marry into the town. Leaving each time the Vongola called had become a relief.

The worried father and husband (no matter how bad he was at upholding those titles) ran out of the airport as fast as he could without alerting the civilians or the many watchful eyes upon him to his almost supernatural presence.

(Those eyes he could sense watching him but could sense no flames of life from were cold and sharp - probably from the Hibari clan; somehow they had heard of his return.)

There was a car waiting out front for him, and his first thought was that Timoteo had called ahead to organise a car from one of Vongola's Japanese cells to deliver him to his family, but his intuition ran cold just before a pale hand slipped around the opening passenger doors and held them wide open.

"Get in, Iemitsu Sawada," Kimiko Hibari greeted. "We have much to discuss."

[x]

The car ride was silent, for the most part.

Iemitsu knew why. Kimiko was a Hibari, through and through - Queen Hibari, in a manner of speaking, and whatever had been important enough to pull her away from her territory so she could claim first monopoly on Iemitsu's time in Japan would not be spoken of until they had crossed whatever 'mystical' barrier the clan had long ago decided was the boundaries of the communities formed into one and known as 'Namimori.'

The woman's dark eyes stared at him, almost without blinking, throughout the whole ride. When she finally spoke, it was only years of training that kept Iemitsu from jumping.

"You do not know Namimori very well, do you?" Kimiko's voice was as blank as ever, yet Iemitsu was sure he could hear an undercurrent of amusement in it, as if she had sensed him hold back a flinch. "Even though you are Namimori born, your parents fled before you could be given your _shukutō_ , and thus you are _mujōna_."

 _Heartless,_ Iemitsu thought. _Souless_.

It was one of Namimori's strange traditions, the giving of _shukutō_ names to children born within the town limits upon birth. Both his parents had been given their own, decades ago, by the clan head that came before Kimiko, her grandfather; but he had been given none. In the eyes of Namimori as a collective, being _mujōna_ was a far worse fate than merely being _outcasten_ like Iemitsu's parents. He had never figured out _why_ it was just so important, but he figured that the Hibari's had the whole town warped through some mix of fear and Stockholms syndrome.

"No," Iemitsu answered carefully. "But I believe I know enough."

By the slight tensing of her shoulders, Kimiko had caught the subtle insult in his words.

Iemitsu held back a smile - he had managed to ruffle the empress' feathers.

Kimiko's smile was poison-red and painful. She let out a small laugh. "Well, _I_ do not believe so, and it is _my_ opinion that matters within Namimori." Her eyes glinted from across the dark expanse of the car. "Tell me, Iemitsu Sawada, what do you know of demons? Of the legacy of the Yuuki line?"

 _Demons?_ Iemitsu thought, baffled. And then - _Yuuki?_

His wife's family?

He answered Kimiko warily. "Apparently, not enough."

"Demons are real," Kimiko told him bluntly. "Your wife's family has long held incredible spiritual power. Nana Yuuki has never shown any aptitude for her blood's gifts - until earlier this week, that is. I have yet to gain the full story," here she frowned, as if annoyed at her lack of a clear picture, "but at some point in the past three days, Nana Yuuki awakened something of her line's power within her, and it struck out against her son. Tsunayoshi Yuuki has suffered a great spiritual wound, and is at rest within my clan's compound."

Ignoring the rest of what Kimiko had said, Iemitsu glared at her. "I thought my son was in hospital," he snarled.

Kimiko shrugged fluidly, the dark silk of her kimono creasing with the motion. "Nana Yuuki took him there after the incident occured, but his wound was not physical, and this was a mistake. Once it had been ascertained by my clan just what had happened, we took the child into our custody for the period of his recovery."

Iemitsu gritted his teeth. "Sawada," he corrected.

Kimiko smiled at him. "I will not allow myself to label one of my herd as one of those not named, outcasten child of blood traitors."

[x]

"Iemitsu!"

A warm weight collided with his chest, and muffled sobbing noises reached his ears. Nana was pretty much inconsolable with a mix of grief and hysteria, but Iemitsu, for one small moment, allowed himself a respite, a tiny piece of relief as he breathed out.

He could feel Kimiko's eyes on them fromthe car, and if that woman was capable of emoting in anywhere near the human range, he was certain she would be utterly amused right now.

"Sweetheart," he spoke. "Nana, I need you to tell me what happened."

Nana lifted her head from where she had buried it within his chest and gazed up at him with wide, fearful eyes. Her arms briefly tightened around his middle, and she paled.

He frowned, intuition sparking."...Nana?"

"I don't want you to hate me," she whispered as she once again pressed her face against his chest, hiding herself from his view.

Iemitsu was very suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that both he and his wife were standing out in the open space of the pathway in front of their house, in full view of all the neighbours who were _surely_ watching. "I could never hate you, love," he soothed as he tried to think of a way to move both himself and his wife indoors without the thrice damned Hibari interfering.

Turns out, he didn't have to.

"Ryo," Kimiko spoke. "Kyo is safe and with us, for now. My word he shall return to you safe and healed before the next moon's cycle is upon us."

Nana made a soft broken sound, somewhere between gratitude and an agonized plea of a sob.

"I shall send one of the clan to you in the morning," Kimiko continued. "For now, rest and be with your husband."

Only a Hibari could say such a sentence and make it sound a mix of menace and condescension.

"Come on," Nana said, seemingly regaining her composure as she pulled herself fully away from Iemitsu, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

It struck Iemitsu, in that moment, that his wife was so very small, and so very young, to look that weighed down, that tired.

"Come inside, Iemitsu," Nana continued as the car Kimiko had dropped him off in drove in the direction of the Namimori shrine. "There are some...things, I need to explain. Things I should have told you long ago, before we even married. Things... things about my family."

Iemitsu felt worry skitter through his nerves and down his spine. That was the second time tonight his wife's family had been mentioned and if there was one thing the Vongola had taught him, it was that, sometimes, a civilian family isn't all that different from a mafia Family.

[x]

Whatever the man known in the underground world as the Vongola's 'Young Lion' had been expecting, it certainly wasn't that.

"So, you're telling me...demons are real?"

Nana nodded sharply, nervously. "There are your traditional _ayakashi_ that you hear of in spirit tales, but those are not the ones I am speaking of now. When speaking of my family, and the Hibari clan, and the history of Namimori, I mean the _shisha_ and the _mōja_."

"Both of those mean - "

"Dead. Yes."

Iemitsu leaned forwards, closer to his wife. He was trying hard not be skeptical, he really was - after all, he was a mafioso who could light up in flames with a harmonizing ability at will. Suspension of disbelief was the least he could do for his still slightly tramuatised wife.

"A _shisha_ is born when one with a broken unity dies. To be whole, one must be of sound body, soul and mind. Imbalance taints the spirit and if one dies in this state, they become _shisha_. Normally they are not a danger to those in the living realm, but Namimori is a bit different when it comes to such things." Nana's eyes gleamed. "You know, of course, that when your ancestor Ieyasu arrived here, the Hibari clan had already been well established on the mountain?"

Iemitsu nodded - of course he knew. Even if his parents had not told him, preffering to avoid all mention of Namimori, it was covered in the Vongolan ettiquette and history lessons he had been forced to attend while going through trianing.

"Namimori, you see, is something of a spiritual epicenter. Several ley lines crossover within its borders, and the Hibari clan has always protected them as the second owners of the land. When humans arrived, however, difficulties arose, as now they had to be protected, as well. Ieyasu made a contract with the Hibari clan with the Yuuki family acting as the mediator. The humans of the settlement would give the Hibari's the spiritual energy they needed, and in turn, the Hibari's would protect them against the Other. _Shisha_ gain incredible strength around the ley lines, and become quite vengeful."

"What about the other type you mentioned?" Iemitsu questioned. "The _mōja_? And how exactly does this relate to your family? Or our son?"

Nana's eyes darkened. "The _mōja_ are not important right now," she said. "What is important is the _shisha_ , and the Yuuki family. You see, before people settled here, only _mōja_ were drawn to the power of the ley lines - the _shisha_ only came when the humans did. The _mōja_ are drawn to spiritual power, and the Hibari have hunted them for ages. The _shisha_ are drawn to humans of spiritual power, and the Yuuki have hunted them since the family was first formed. My family's line has always had strong sight and aura, but those gifts had come from our _ayakashi_ ancestors and have slowly dwindled over time. I had no such gifts, and Tsuna hadn't shown any either..."

Iemitsu could sense a 'but...' coming. "What is it, Nana? You can tell me, you know."

Nana burst into tears. "I'm still...not entirely, sure." She gasped out. "Tsuna - he was, was just being a kid, but I...I got so _mad_ , and it just burst out of me, and then he _wouldn't wake up_ , and I _can't remember_ what happened, but the Hibari's were _happy -"_ here Nana's voice broke "- when they saw just how _broken_ our baby was."

Anger flashed like a strike of lightning, like a storm of flames through Iemitsu, and then settled down into a smoulder. "What do you mean?"

Nana shuddered. "Even if the Yuuki blood wasn't active, it was there, in Tsuna. When I somehow awakened mine and lashed out at him, I inflicted a wound on his soul, his spirit. If he'd died, he would have become _shisha_. But he lived...and that means he now has a high amount of spiritual power within him. The _shisha_ will flock to Namimori, like they have not since my parents died, and they will come after our little boy." Here, Nana paused, and looked steadily at her husband. "The Hibari's only oath to the people of Namimori is to protect them from _mōja_ , not _shisha_. When they come here, Tsuna will be on his own. Kimiko...earlier today, she offered to have him trained withing the clan."

Iemitsu froze. _"What?"_ he snapped out, voice like ice. Kimiko was a cold woman, the death of a single child would not wound her. In fact, if Tsuna's continued existence proved to be a danger to her precious Namimori by attracting demons to it, she may just eliminate him herself.

Which begged the question, why would she offer her help?

"What was the price, Nana?" Iemitsu asked warily. "What was it she asked for?"

"She said her clan would be honoured to train Kyo Yuuki," Nana whispered. "She made no mention of Tsunayoshi Sawada."

Iemitsu gritted his teeth. Of course not, why would Kimiko acknowledge someone she saw as a potential pawn as tainted by the blood of a traitor? And that was certainly all his son was to her, a pawn, to be used and then thrown away once the Hibari clan had drained out of Tsuna all he could give, right down to the marrow.

"Tsuna will not be trained by any Hibari," Iemitsu's voice was low, and deadly. "I'll call in a favour from my boss - he knows a few seals, and may able to supress some of Tsuna's...aura."

Nana hiccoughed out a few broken sobs, but acquiesced. "Okay," she agreed faintly.

 **17| We've awoken something ancient.**

To outsiders, the tenth generation of the Vongola were eerie.

Disturbing. Strange. Honestly, kind of terrifying.

And it wasn't anything they had done, to make people feel this way. It was by the very virtue of their existence.

 _(Hayato Gokudera, Vongola's tenth storm guardian, grinned down at the man who had tried to run a sword through the Decimo._

 _For a minute, the light hit his hair in a way that made it seem pink, and the shadows the strands of hair formed on his face looked like the pattern of an intricate tattoo._

 _"G," The Decimo cautioned, amusement in his tone -_

 _\- but that, that wasn't - that wasn't the Decimo's_ voice - )

Tsuna smiled at Timoteo, at his father, at Reborn.

"Don't worry," he told them, "We'll take good care of the Vongola."

They smiled back at the young boy, trying to ignore the shivers his words sent down their spines.

 _(Tsunayoshi Sawada's eyes shone orange as he gazed across the lawn of Vongola estate. The sun was rising above the horizon, the same orange hue as his eyes._

 _Footsteps, behind him. "Hey there, Tsuna," Yamamoto's voice came from the doorway of the verandah. Tsuna tilted his head slightly to glance around at the tenth Vongola rain._

 _Yamamoto straightened. "Oh," he said. "Giotto."_

 _Tsuna smiled. "Good morning, Yamamoto," he welcomed. "I'm sorry, but I wish to speak with Asari."_

 _Asari Ugestu gazed at the world through the eyes of his tenth successor among the ranks of the Vongola, and smiled. "Ohayou, Ieyasu," he spoke warmly.)_

The Vongola's tenth generation is as rowdy as those that came before them. They are loud, they are dangerous, they don't know the meaning of words like 'subtlety,' or what is meant when their boss tells them that half measures are fine.

But sometimes, something old will shine through their faces, a knowing glint in their eyes that says ' _I've done it all before, and better than you_.' The relationship of the rest of the tenth genertation to their mist guardian has never been the best, but sometimes something deeper than dislike, a true hatred, a sense of betrayal, will be present.

Outsiders think of the Vongola's tenth generation, and shudder.

For those children who are not children will _destroy_ the mafia -

 _( - along with anyone who stands in their way.)_

 **18| The hardest part of having a book of demon summoning rituals is deciding which one to try first.**

Cammie Strauss was a witch.

Or, well, a witch in training.

Sort of. Kinda.

Okay, her _mother_ was a witch. Had been a witch. Or something, her father had never explained it very well.

Her father was just your ordinary, everyday human. He was a buisnessman, worked for a company that's main HG was located overseas - in Italy, maybe? Yeah, Italy, he worked for Vongola, they were Italian.

She thinks.

Her mother had died giving birth to her. Witches were immortal until they had children, and when Cammie had taken her first breath of air, her mother's years had caught up to her.

It was sad, but Cammie was cool with it. Just her and her dad was fine, even when he had to go to Italy on his buisness meetings.

However, being left alone in the house gave Cammie the opportunity to...try out some things.

And that is how our story starts.

[x]

When Cammie's mother died, all of her earthly belongings were left to Cammie and her father.

Of course, most of her earthly belongings weren't actually all that earth-y. More mystic-y, and far too dangerous for a child to play with. So, the spellbooks, potion ingredients and talismans were hidden away from Cammie, until she was older.

Her dad wasn't the greatest at hiding things. She'd found them when she was six, and they hadn't changed positions since. Over the years she'd sporadically read through some of her mothers books, but had never actually done any of the rituals or performed any charms.

Well, today would be different! She'd done her research on this book - and she was as ready as she ever would be.

Today, Cammie Strauss would become a full witch.

Today, Cammie Strauss would summon herself a familiar from the demon realms.

[x]

(In Italy, Tsunayoshi Sawada, Vongola Decimo, sneezed.)

[x]

Her circle was laid out. The offerings were in place. Cammie lifted up the book in her hands and readied the page that held the chant she had chosen to use as her summoning.

She opened her mouth, took a deep breath,

spoke, " _Onegaidesu, kono-goe o kiki su watashi no ketsui ukagau, arigatōgozaimasu_!"

And then, there was light.

[x]

(Hayato Gokudera frowned.

His Decimo senses were tingling.)

[x]

Cammie let out a gasp as the light died down and a human shape could be seen lying in the circle she had drawn out.

A groaning human shape, who was sitting up.

"Are you a demon?" Cammie whispered.

The groaning human shape froze, and Cammie squeaked as burning orange eyes locked onto her face.

" _Eigo?_ " The person murmured.

Cammie tilted her head. "Huh?" she asked.

The person cleared their throat. "English?" They questioned.

Cammie nodded. "Australian. Are you a demon?"

Her summon made a vague choking noise and turned pale, before shaking their head as if to clear their thoughts. "So, are we in Australia, then?" He asked instead of answering her, as if resigning himself.

Cammie shook her head, _no_. "We're in America," she informed the man who _had_ to be a demon, who else would have eyes like that?

The demon had been listening with a half ear, eyes scanning the room. His gaze fell upon the ritual Cammie had written out and used, and narrowed. He stood, and Cammie registered that he was wearing quite a nice suit, probably tailored to fit him. "That's Japanese," he said, voice low.

A warning skittered down Cammie's spine, but she ignored it, and twisted in her kneeling position, to look at the piece of paper that had fallen behind her when the light had blasted out of her summoning circle.

お願いです  
この声を聞きす  
私の決意伺う  
ありがとうございます

"Is it really?" she asked. "I knew the symbols were oriental, but they had the words written out in the latin alphabet, so I just spoke those phonetically." She glanced back at the one she had summoned. "Are you a Japanese demon, then? You kind of look like you come from an Asian country."

The man sighed. "I'm not a demon," he said as he bent down and reached around Cammie to scoop the piece of paper up. " _I beg of you, to hear my voice and my will, thank you,_ " he murmured.

(If this was an anime, then by now Tsuna would have sweatdropped. If that was all it took to make a sentence into a spell, then magic was not what the majority of the populace thought it was.

However, that bit about will...)

"How do you feel about Italy?" he asked the girl.

Cammie perked up. "My dad works there for some large company!" she informed him. "Can you take me there, mister familiar?"

(Anime or not, Tsuna sweatdropped. "Ah, what?" he asked nervously

"Familiar-san?" Cammie frowned. "-kun? Familiar, what honorific do you want me to use?"

"I'm not a demon, I'm not your familiar - "

"-chan?"

" _Please_ \- "

"-hime?"

"That one doesn't even make any _sense_ \- ")

 **19| Tell a story that ends with, "...and anyway, that's how I lost my medical liscence."**

Gokudera was fuming. Reborn was smiling like this was his birthday come early (and everyone _knew_ how Reborn felt about his birthday). Yamamoto seemed to be holding back a grin.

And Shamal was shuffling in his seat as he chuckled nervously.

From his position behind his desk, Tsuna sighed and buried his head in his hands, and wondered if Shoichi could get him some antacids.

Already he could tell this was _not_ going to end well.

[x]

 _SLAP._

Shamal blinked as his face was hit with an open-handed smack hard enough to crack his head around.

"Pervert!" The woman yelled as she pulled her jacket around her and crossed her arms protectively over her chest, running out of the room.

"Wait, beautiful!" Shamal cried out. "I haven't finished looking you over yet!"

" _PERVERT!_ "

[x]

"And, well..." Shamal laughed. "She called the police, and they investigated my medical practice history, and..."

Tsuna sighed and sank further down into his seat, hands gripping tighter into his hair.

"...that's how I lost my medical liscence."

(Gokudera growled while Tsuna whimpered.

"I was wondering if you could use your influence to help me get reinstated, Decimo?" Shamal looked like a hopeful puppy dog.

Tsuna wondered if Reborn would kick him if he started crying.

Probably.)

 **20| I swear to God I'm important, I just...can't prove it, yet.**

Tsunayoshi Sawada was the definition of what one would call insignificant.

Or, at least, he would be.

Before Decimo, before Vongola and Reborn, Tsunayoshi Sawada was Dame-Tsuna, No-Good and Useless Tsuna, the laughing stock of Namimori Middle.

However, before Dame-Tsuna and Namimori Middle, there was Namimori Primary.

And there was Uchikina-Tsuna.

[x]

Tsunayoshi Sawada was a cheerful boy. Bright, happy, friendly.

It was just hard to see these personality traits behind the quiet and awkwardness.

Most people were content to leave Uchikina-Tsuna alone, and to his own devices.

But then Timoteo happened, and Tsuna went from shy and quiet, to nervous and clumsy. He went from being a shadow to being a blinking target.

Tsuna didn't understand why it was that the other kids were so cruel to him.

And then, one day, it happened -

\- _"Hey look, guys, it's Dame-Tsuna!"_ -

\- Tsuna went from Uchikina to Dame.

[x]

And then Namimori Middle happened.

By then, Tsuna had grown used to the name of Dame. He accepted it.

However, he didn't embrace it. The whisper of _uchikina_ that echoed deep within the bowels of his mind reminded him of better days

(and a dark, bitter part wondered if those scant few years of being _ignored_ over being abused were his halcyon days)

days where he would react to name calling or punches with surprise, rather than exhausted resignation.

[x]

(Little did he know, rebirth - of a sort - was just around the corner.

True, he would never be Uchikina-Tsuna again.

But he would evolve beyond _Dame_ , as well.)

-END-

 **16|** Part one, chronologically, of my demon!verse.  
(無情な) _Mujōna_ \- heartless, souless. Conotations of monster, abomination. Used in this case to refer to a traitor.  
(亡者) _Mōja_ \- dead. Chosen for its similarity to _mujōna_ , for plot reasons.  
(死者) _Shisha_ \- means dead, but also broken/defunct. Sometimes has connotations of discarded/unwanted.  
I hate Iemitsu as much as the next decent human being, but the dude is neglectful and stupid, not malicious or evil. He deserves a chance at redemption as much as anyone who has messed up. Of course, that does not mean it will be easy, or even that it will happen. Simply that it is possible for him to redeem himself, and I won't write that off.

 **17|** I was going for creepy, and it didn't turn out that way, so I cut this piece short. Anyway, what do you think? (I don't understand the First/Tenth Gen reincarnation. IF THAT IS A THING, EXPLAIN TO ME DAEMON SPADE)

 **18|** Hahaha, OC crack. I don't know, I was playing around with Japanese and I got this image of Tsuna looking over the page thinking that it didn't even sound like a spell. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY.

 **19|** *is canon, probably* This will happen one day. Probably already has happened. Someone, fic me that please? The escapades of the pervert doctor Shamal, and all the effort the Vongola put into keeping him liscenced.

 **20|** Awww, my poor bby Tsu.  
(内気な) _Uchikina_ \- shy, reticent, quiet. Chosen because the pronounciation of the word itself is _adorable_.  
Kind of a headcanon, I guess? I sort of subscribe to the whole, 'Tsuna-was-a-normal-if-quiet-kid-before-his-flames-were-sealed-(well done Vongola Nono).


End file.
